Why setting the bar of achievements too high is bad for you and your mental wellbeing
I'm actually serious about this one, as a former perfectionist, always setting the bar higher than I could ever achieve.
I know all too well the blight it has cast over my own life from a very early age and the seemingly constant disappointment it brought me.
We, as humans, are not designed to be perfect, we are flawed and in order to learn and grow, to obtain the necessary skills to become functional adults, we learn through failure.
What happens to neurology when a perfectionist has this kind of self-talk (we all talk to ourselves and often it's not nice)?
What should happen is the happy hormones, endorphin, dopamine, serotonin, should be shaken into the most delicious cocktail and released into the body nurturing every cell allowing us to feel fantastic.
What actually happens is that this release of feel-good doesn't happen or is significantly dampened down.
And even more relevant is if stress hormones, mainly cortisol (but it is also a cocktail of adrenaline, cortisol, DHEA and noradrenaline - and toxic in large doses) are released frequently.
This results in the brain considering this to be the most frequently used state of being and adopts that one.
In other words, perpetually stressed!
Plain speaking this means that in the absence of any particular cocktail that is clear in its message the brain will opt for the most frequently used. In my experience, those people who are perfectionist love a toxic cocktail.
Ditching the perfectionism is achieved by creating healthier habits, learning to let go of things not being perfect, being kind to yourself when you don’t perfectly achieve letting go of the perfectionism and celebrating leaving the bed unmade, the dirty dishes on the kitchen side, hair slightly out of place, car looking like it is actually used in real life, being ok with not always saying the right thing at the right time.
What's the antidote - well, the first step is to recognise that you are potentially a perfectionist,
then ask yourself if this way of being has been useful to you - absolutely there is a time and a place where perfectionism shines, but not for every day; for turning the labels round on all your jars, studying or stressing to a point where you can no longer think straight, doing and redoing something over and over again because it's not quite right and never actually finishing it because it's not perfect when good would be good enough.
Start this journey by writing down the things that you successfully let go of, don’t require to be perfect each and every day so that your focus becomes one of balanced acceptance that not everything can be perfect.
